Just lose my stolen wings
by Ms.Informed13
Summary: She's not small and thin shouldered anymore, she's grown tall and strong. Her face is sharper and the circles beneath her eyes are dark. But to you she will always be the girl with the soft-rough hands and the thin smile. Hogwarts AU CLEXA
1. Chapter 1

**A/N- To be entirely honest, this story was originally written as an Angelina/Katie story. I wrote the first chapter and then got stuck and I couldn't figure out why it felt wrong. But then it clicked- this just wasn't the right couple for this story.**

 **So I rewrote it as a Clexa story.**

 **That being said it is still set at Hogwarts during the timeline of the Harry Potter books, though you do not necessarily need to have read/watched that series to understand this.**

 **I own nothing.**

 **Title from 'Marathon Runner' by Yellow Ostrich**

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You are not a pureblood but your damn close. Your father's grandmother was a muggle, but your family doesn't care about stuff like that. All it means is that you've been waiting to go to Hogwarts since you were old enough to understand what it was.

Now you're standing in the great hall, rain soaked with the other first years who have all managed to keep from falling in the lake on the boat ride over. The rain was thrashing the small wooden vessels and you had clung on desperately alongside a lanky blonde boy and a squat girl who have both disappeared in the crowd of first years.

You are shivering slightly both from the cold and nerves while you listen to Professor McGonagall explain the sorting process- you have at least eight chocolate frog cards with her on them and are rendered somewhat starstruck between seeing her, Professor Dumbledore, and the majesty of the ceiling of the great hall reflecting the storm outside.

In your awe you nearly miss your name being called, but then you're stumbling along up to the stool and the hat is being dropped on your head and you hear a voice chuckling in your ears.

'Griffin eh? You're more like your father than your mother aren't you?' And before the hat declares your house to the hall you know it will be 'Gryffindor!' Because your father was a lion and your mother was a raven and apparently you've inherited his heart.

You smile brightly as you join the cheering mass of red and gold clad students. You take a seat beside two redhaired boys who introduce themselves as Fred and George. There's a girl sitting across from them who brightens when they begin discussing a secret passageway to Honeydukes under their breaths while the remaining first years are sorted.

She is thin and delicate with tan skin and a striking profile. Her features are all hard angles and sharp corners and when she catches you staring, she looks you over with a critical gaze before a small thin smile plays across her lips.

You can practically feel her eyes flicking across you pale cheeks and up the slope of your nose. Your features are far softer than hers, round cheeks with high bones and a button nose that you still haven't quite grown into.

You know you must be blushing but you hold her gaze anyway until she turns her attention back to the two boys.

You see her in the halls and in the common room but it takes weeks before you learn her name. It's at the very first quidditch match of the year- Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. You spot the confident tilt of her jaw easily from your spot perched in the Gryffindor stands with the rest of your house even though she is clearly the smallest player on the team.

As the Gryffindors march out onto the field you watch her sure steps. She is so slight, and so small compared to the seventh year chaser she is walking beside- the top of her head hardly makes the height his shoulder. When they mount their brooms and kick off you listen carefully to the boy announcing the roster of players.

"From the Gryffindor team we have a solid lineup of returning players-Oliver Wood at keeper, captain Julia Isles seeking, Jackson Kar and Austin Jarvis as chasers. Lots of fresh blood though as we welcome second years Fred and George Weasley as beaters and Lexa Woods as our final chaser!"

Lexa. You test it out quietly under your breath, marveling in how easily it rolls off your tongue. Nobody hears you as a roar goes up from the stands when the players mount their brooms and kick off into the air.

She looks even more tiny in the air as her robes flap out behind her. But when the game begins, you grow concerned for an entirely different reason. She plays with reckless abandon having seemingly no concern for her own wellbeing as she collides with opposing chasers, she looks like a human bludger.

There's this one absolutely ridiculous play where she gets passed the quaffle and bullets down the pitch weaving in and out of players. She avoids a bludger and has nearly a clear shot at the goals except for an opposing chaser right on her tail. He is too close for her to be able to throw the ball through a hoop but she has no support from her team.

You listen carefully to the announcer, leaning forward over the edge of the student box to peer down the pitch, "It's Woods with the quaffle. Woods down the pitch almost within scoring range with Malcolm of Hufflepuff close on her tail. She'll have to make another pass at it- too bad she was looking so good to that point, not that she doesn't still look damn fine. Sorry Professor." Across the pitch you can just see Professor McGonagall glaring at the boy announcing who you can now recognize as Lee Jordan.

"What's this? Woods hasn't pulled off. She's still on course to goal. She's going to collide with the keeper- scratch that she's bowled right into the keeper, what an interesting bit of flying, Woods has flown right through the center hoop!"

You held your breath as you watched Lexa collide headfirst into the Hufflepuff keeper at top speed. He was knocked back by the force of the collision and smacked into the goal post. Lexa sailed cleanly through the hoop, ducking low over her broom with the quaffle held close to her body.

Lee Jordan asks the question on everyone's mind, "Does that even count as a goal?" He is answered by Madame Hooch's whistle and he tacks on 20 points to Gryffindor.

In the end, the Hufflepuff keeper ends up on the ground unconscious. The red and gold spectators go crazy for this juggernaut of a girl and you release a breath you didn't realize you had been holding because you're eleven years old and you've barely learned her name, but you're sure something terrible might have happened if Lexa had crashed.

"Chaser Lexa Woods has scored her first goal of her Hogwarts career and seems to be giving the Weasley twins a run for her money- who needs beaters when you've got a chaser like that. Wonder if she'd go out with me- sorry Professor!"

She scores a few more goals for the team as do the other chasers now that the Hufflepuff goals are undefended, and the game ends after nearly forty minutes when the Gryffindor seeker catches the snitch. That evening when the Weasley twins nick some butter beers for a celebration in the common room (much to their older brother Percy's disdain) you are watching her sneakily from across the room.

She has been walking with a bit of tenderness since the game and is now leaning on the wall to play off how sore she must be from ramming into other players. She catches your eye over her bottle and raises an eyebrow. You blush deeply- it seems to be the only response you're capable of around her- and she smiles her little thin smile before winking and taking a swig of her drink and returning to the conversation she had been holding with the twins.

The first time you speak with her is months later near the end of the school year. You're walking quickly, head down, bag slung high on your shoulder determined to make it back to Gryffindor tower before curfew hits and you walk straight into her.

She is sauntering along beside the Weasley twins, all of them with thick sweaters that makes it look as though they were headed outside.

You stumble a bit and her hand on your elbow steadies you.

"Sorry." She says, and her voice is low and rough and everything you should have expected from her dark eyes and her thin smiles but it still catches you wonderfully off guard.

"It's fine. I should have been paying attention to where I was going." You smile weakly.

She regards you for a second before something clicks behind her eyes, "You're Clarke, right?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go Lexa! I'm not getting caught by Filch again!" One of the Weasley twins calls.

She just rolls her eyes, "Coming." She yells back, "It was nice meeting you, Clarke." She tells you, holding out her hand.

You take it and marvel at the soft- rough of her calloused hand, no doubt toughened from hours spent on a broom throwing and catching a quaffle. Her hand encompasses yours perfectly and she lets the hold linger a little longer than it should. She shoots you one of those thin little smiles and nods before dropping your hand and sauntering off after where the twins have disappeared behind a statue of a humpback witch.

You hurry back to the tower and barely make it in time.

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 **A/N- Drop a review, tell me what you thought**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- Chapter 2, each chapter is a year of school**

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You are a fair flier, you don't have any siblings but you've got more cousins than you can count and they all play quidditch. Naturally they teach you in their summers home from school and by the time you go to Hogwarts you like your chances of making your house team.

You do in your second year as one of the old chasers graduates. You are the only new member this year and the whole walk down to the field for your first practice you try to talk yourself into staying calm.

It doesn't work.

You arrive a jittery mess of nerves and it's a miracle you manage to open the door of the team's changing room and enter without tripping over your own two feet. But then you do trip because I looks like you're the last one there and everyone else is in some halfway state of undress, and they all turn to look at you when you walk in the door. Your captain Julia Isles thankfully takes charge- she's the seeker and was captain last year as well. She was all business at tryouts but seems nice enough so far, "Your practice robes are in your locker, over next to Lexa and Raven." She directs with a smile, "We wear crimson for Monday and Thursday practices and black for Tuesday and Friday." She's already changed and after addressing you she goes back to her small office to look over some bits of parchment. The office has a window which overlooks the locker room, it is decorated with a few photos of what must be past Gryffindor quidditch teams.

You nod and move numbly to the old wooden locker which bears the shiny nameplate 'Griffin'- you're in the corner beside Raven. You note that the changing room is coed and the only distinction seems to be the showers which are marked with 'witches' and 'wizards' placards. For a moment you just marvel at your practice uniforms, and the fact that you've really made it here and you are a part of the team. Then a voice brings you out of your wonder.

"Isles, I've only got black practice robes in here! My red must have gotten stuck in laundry somewhere." It's Raven and she's strutting across the locker room to poke her head into the captain's office.

"They're crimson, not red." Julia says before looking up at her, and when she does, he rolls his eyes. Raven is in her bra and underwear, and nothing else, "I guess we'll all have to swap to black for the day."

Fred who's already got his red robes on pulls a face, "Come On, does it really matter if we're all matching?"

"Yes! We have to present a united front, how we practice sets a precedent for how we will play." She lectures.

"Sorry I asked." He mutters.

Julia follows Raven across the changing rooms to swap for her black robes. On the way she stops to smack George on the back of the head- throughout the whole exchange he had been staring blatantly at Raven in her underwear. You distinctly hear Julia mutter something about 'damn ogling Weasley boys' and you connect the dots that she must have been on the team when the older Weasleys were still in school but all thought of the redheads is driven from you mind a moment later because you turn back towards your locker and there is Lexa.

She's just whipped off her crimson robes and is folding them up while just wearing her sports bra and a small pair of shorts and those Hogwarts robes do not do her justice because the planes of her muscles are so much smoother than you ever imagined they would be. And what you always thought were narrow shoulders are accentuated by muscles that flex and contract when she reaches up to drop her red robes back on the shelf in her locker. Her arms are corded with biceps and you find yourself wondering if her skin is as soft as it looks.

You are only drawn from your musings when Raven comes back to her locker and blocks the other brunette from your sight. You hurry to change, getting caught and trying to pull your head through an armhole until Raven grabs your robes and rights them for you.

You hold up much better in practice, able to lose yourself in the ease of flying through different patterns with the chasers. You think you may have finally found your place here at Hogwarts- which isn't to say that you hadn't made friends with the other Gryffindors in your year and even a few Ravenclaws- but this feels different. When you all land at the end of practice you are windswept and exhausted but you feel lighter than you have in months. The team gets dinner together and talks loudly joking through the meal, when Fred teases you for a particularly bad fumble you made during practice which had resulted in you narrowly avoiding crashing into one of the student spectating stands, you wonder if this is what siblings would feel like.

But then Lexa has this thin smile when she chuckles and looks at you with those dark eyes and you know that this feels different. Exhilarating and scary and wonderful all at once and you wonder how it is that you can feel all these things from just a simple look.

You might never figure that out.

You throw up before your first game. It's just against Ravenclaw and they're definitely not your biggest competition, but they're still better than Hufflepuff. You are wearing your match robes for the first time and you are bent in half beside the changing room.

You are alone because all the students watching the match are already in the stands and your team is all in the changing room. You feel the nerves knotting the pit of stomach and you can't help it when you contract in half and spit bile into the grass at your feet.

A hand sweeps the curtain of your blonde hair out of the way and holds it securely back while you feel another rub soothing circles into your back. You startle, not having heard anyone approaching, but the reassuring had at your back doesn't stop and it is accompanied by a low voice.

"Easy there, just get it all out."

You spit one final time, trying to get rid of the taste in your mouth as much as you can before you stand back up properly. Lexa is there, letting your hair go and still rubbing your back. She hands you a water bottle from the pocket of her robes and you accept it gratefully, rinsing your mouth out.

"I'm sorry." You say reflexively, and you really need to stop apologizing to her.

"It's alright. I yaked before my first match too."

Something in the way her smile is a little thinner than normal and the way you can very acutely feel the heat of her hand through your robes makes you smile and quip back, "You mean to say the amazing Lexa Woods has nerves too?"

She chuckles a little bit, "Don't tell anyone, you'll ruin my street cred."

"Of course."

She doesn't sass back like you've grown accustomed to over these past few weeks getting to know her and the rest of the team. She just stares at you for a moment like she's stopping herself from saying something. Then her hand on your back disappears and comes to instead sweep some hair off your face and behind you ear. She lets her hand linger cupping your chin and you revel in the soft- rough against your cheek. Finally she breaks the thick silence that has settled over the two of you, "You're going to fly really well out there. I know it." The words feel heavy like they're being pushed out around something Lexa would rather say but can't quite bring herself to.

You try to take them at face value because she's your teammate and she believes in you and you look up to her which is why your heart is practically leaping at her statement.

Then Julia's voice is yelling that the match is about to start and that you all need to be lined up to enter the pitch in two minutes.

Lexa drops her hand from your face but let's her fingers link with yours, leading the way back into the locker room. You memorize the way her hand feels holding yours. Her grip is strong and you try to believe you can be too when you mount your broom and kick off into the air.

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 **A/N- Thanks for reading, tell me what you thought.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N- To clarify- Lexa is one year ahead of Clarke so in this chapter she's a fourth year.**

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You're better at potions than any Slytherin in your year and you get the sneaking suspicion that because of this Snape might actually like you. You don't have any concrete evidence but there's something in the way he doesn't vanish the contents of your cauldron if it's not exactly perfect or threaten you with no marks for the day. Sometimes he'll even sweep past your station and utter disproving things like 'I seriously hope you weren't planning on stirring that before you reduce the heat' or 'is that really how you plan on adding the powdered sea lion spine?' All of this before you've actually made a horrible mistake and ruined the brew.

You've watched him smirk as others ruined countless potion, only intervening if they ran the risk of an explosion- which was happening with increasing regularity in your later years as the potions got more difficult. You can even usually proofread Lexa's potions essays for her and spot all of her errors- she makes it up to you in charms and transfiguration- even though she's a year ahead.

Which is what you spend most of your third year doing. You catch a bad case of Mumblemumps and spend the year on and off in the hospital wing watching a revolving cast of injured quidditch players and you see the bad effects of sloppy spell work firsthand.

Lexa comes to visit, first under the pretense of checking up on a teammate. She trudges in and her hair is windswept, small wisps are sticking to her forehead, she is practically glistening with sweat which makes sense as it's the beginning of the school year still and the late afternoon sunlight has been streaming into the hospital wing for the past few hours. Her quidditch robes are all askew and her broom is over a shoulder.

She smiles when her eyes fall on you in your corner bed and she struts over, all fourteen year old swagger, "Hey." She offers.

"Hey."

"Everyone was asking about you at practice so I wanted to come check in." She says and though she's got her usual thin confident grin, there's just the slightest bit of color rising on her cheeks.

"That's really nice of you."

The next time is two days later, she comes in under the pretense of needing help with a potions essay. You spot her rouse from a mile away because not even a first year would mistake boomslang skin for blowflies wings in a healing draught.

You correct it anyway.

She does this the first few times you get sick, always coming in with a potions essay or a history assignment asking for your help. You always find two or three blatant errors she's fudged, and she stays for hours until Madame Pomfrey kicks her out.

Eventually she stops faking mistakes and she just comes to talk or work with you in close proximity. She sits beside your bed, her feet thrown up next to your own and scrawls out essays or reads the large tommes assigned to her. You are afraid that these encounters are going to be limited to the hospital but those fears are put to rest just before winter break.

You are working at a table in the common room after dinner one evening when a familiar book bag drops beside your feet. Lexa folds herself into a seat beside you and pulls out a roll of parchment, text book, and quill. She works quietly for a few moments until she feels your eyes on her.

"What's up, Griffin?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing." You reply quickly. There's plenty of empty tables and you've just come to the realization that she's sitting at yours because she wants to sit beside you. The revelation brings a bright smile to your face while you finish a star chart for astronomy.

This is how your friendship begins, you decide. Studying next to each other turns into breakfast together before classes turns into taking trips to hogsmeade. Raven is there too, making the third member of your trio of chasers but Lexa is different with her. She doesn't look at Raven with the same softens that she does you. She doesn't hold Raven's hand when walking through hogsmeade, you are different.

At first you try not to pay too much attention to it because the way she smiles her thin smile at you when you drop heavily beside her at breakfast with a thickly mumbled 'morning' (you've never been the type to be bright and shiny in the mornings) makes your stomach absolutely flip. She smiles at you like she's got a secret that only you are in on.

But then she does these things that make it impossible to ignore the tension building between the two of you. Like when you have a big exam coming up- she always gives you a chocolate frog the night before knowing your weakness for the sweet and how you have a tendency to cram. One evening your potions exam falls on the same day as her transfiguration practical and she is studying cross-species transformation curled up in a squashy armchair beside your table. Raven is at the table with you glaring at a textbook, she's in the same class as Lexa and she clearly is not as prepared for their upcoming practical as her fellow chaser.

You heave a sigh of exasperation when the explanation of antidotes all seem to blur together before you, and Lexa puts her notes aside.

"Come here." She instructs, spreading her knees apart and dropping a pillow between her feet.

You smile because shoulder massages from Lexa have untold healing powers and she can be stingy with giving them (except, as you learn, when it comes to you). In seconds you are settled on the pillow between her legs, leaning back and her hands are on your shoulders and the soft rough fingers are working through knots you didn't even realize you had.

"Do me next?" Raven asks hopefully.

The taller chaser chuckles, "You complained last time that I was too rough for your delicate shoulders."

"Please?"

"Nope." Lexa smirks, popping the p, "I only give massages to appreciative people."

Raven half growls in annoyance but smiles anyway when she returns to her studying. You on the other hand relax and get lost in the feeling of Lexa's hands on your skin. When she finishes with your shoulders, she moves up, carefully caressing the back of your neck and using her thumbs to smooth over the muscles strained from leaning over books for so long.

Then her fingers sneak up to tangle in your hair. Her nails rake lightly over your scalp and you can't help the little moan that escapes your lips at the feeling. Her fingers still for just a second before continuing, she massages your head softly until the fire burns down to embers and the common room has mostly emptied of people working.

Raven stands and stretches, throwing her things into her bag and departing with a 'night' thrown over her shoulder and Lexa reluctantly trails her hands once more from your neck down to your shoulders and gives you one final squeeze, "You should get some sleep before your test."

"So should you." You accuse.

She smiles her thin smile when you stand and toss the pillow you'd been sitting on towards an empty couch, "You're right."

You both pack up your things in silence and head up the stairs to the girls dormitory together. When you arrive at the third landing where you sleep along with all the other third year girls, she stops too. She plays with the strap of her bag and this feels different from the usual quick 'goodbye' at the end of the night. She fixes you with this look and her lips have the barest shadow of her thin smile.

"Sleep well." She says.

"You as well."

She nods and turns on her heel. She walks up one step before spinning around again and dropping down to the landing. She looks at you for a second then pitches forward to embrace you in a strong hug. It only lasts a few moments before she pulls away and throws one final 'goodnight' over her shoulder and walks up the stairs to her dormitory with all of her usual swagger.

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 **A/N- Question: I've never written a story like this that puts characters into another established universe, does this story qualify as a crossover and should I change the classification to a harry potter cross over or leave it as is?**


	4. Chapter 4

In your fourth year, Oliver Wood becomes captain of the quidditch team. He's a good captain all things considered, a little enthusiastic to be sure and definitely tough but he means well. He tries to keep everyone in good spirits before games with rousing speeches saying things like 'We're going to go out there and show Ravenclaw that the best man always wins.'

Lexa always rolls her eyes and amends his speech to be inclusive of the women on the team. The season goes quite well all things considered until you play Slytherin. It's a tough match as it always is because of the bitter rivalry between your houses about twenty minutes in nobody has scored at all and the play has devolved into something just shy of fistfights midair. The weather isn't helping matters as you are playing in what feels like a hurricane. Icy rain is ruining your visibility and the wind is making accurate passes nearly impossible.

Finally Raven gets a break away streaking down the pitch towards the Slytherin goal, you follow and are in perfect position so when she has to swerve to avoid a bludger she drops you the quaffle. You speed ahead and pull back to hurl the ball at the hoop when suddenly you aren't flying forwards anymore. You are being flung over backwards in a loop and barely managing to hold tight to your broom to not fall off.

Marcus Flint from the Slytherin team had grabbed you by the braid and thrown you into a cartwheel midair.

Madame Hooch is there with a whistle and your penalty shot is an easy goal. When play resumes you watch Lexa fly angrily at Flint. The quaffle is nowhere near either of them and she doesn't seem to care as she shoulders him- hard. He glares at her and shoulders her back. This continues all the way for a full lap of the pitch, their shouldering growing more and more violent until a particularly hard one from Lexa causes Marcus to slip a little on his broom.

She's much taller than that first match where she was hardly a speck on her broom, but she's still nowhere near the bulky frame of the Slytherin captain and you would be afraid for her if you weren't positive she could curse his pants off.

He glares at her and yells something you can't make out. She yells back and they both streak to the muddy ground, dismounting their brooms and launching at each other the second they're on solid ground. Madame Hooch is too preoccupied by the match to notice at first.

It is only after both players have gotten in a few good shots that she blows her whistle and lands to pry them apart. She sends them back into the air with stern warnings.

In the next fifteen minutes Wood gets taken out by a bludger, the Slytherins score three times, Lexa's broom gets struck by lightning and catches fire, and Harry catches the snitch.

The hospital wing is full of muddy players that evening. Wood is the worst off with a few broken ribs from the bludger, Lexa keeps insisting she's fine even though she plowed rather hard into the ground after her broom caught fire- her worst injuries seem to be from her fist fight as she has quite the nice shiner growing over her left eye, and your neck keeps twinging from when you were thrown by the hair.

Lexa manages to talk her way out of spending the night in the hospital wing. After wishing you a goodnight with one of her damn thin smiles and a lingering squeeze of your shoulder, she escapes from Madame Pomfrey's clutches. You stay partially because you grew close to the nurse over your Mumblemumps episodes last year and partially because she keeps throwing around terms like hyperextended vertebrate and dislocated upper spinal nodes all of which are enough to intimidate you into taking a night off of charms homework.

The next morning you wake up feeling one hundred percent and you're released with a warning to take it light for the next week. You don't see Lexa until that evening when you settle in the common room to do some work. She climbs through the portrait hole with her book bag over her shoulder and her face brightens upon seeing you. She makes her way over to her usual armchair beside your table and drops her bag, "So you've made a full recovery?" She asks with that thin smile playing across her sharp features.

"Clean bill of health." You smile back.

Lexa is leaning on the table, dangerously close to where you're seated and is just opening her mouth to reply when another voice echoes across the room.

"Clarke! There you are!" It's Finn. He's in Lexa's year and he's been flirting with you for the last two years, ignoring all attempts you've made to rebuke him.

He comes to stand beside Lexa, not noticing the dangerous glare she's shooting him, "I was worried about you after that match. Brutal team Slytherin." He remarks, he rummages through his pocket for a moment before producing a chocolate frog and sliding it across the table to you, "I got this for you, there's nothing chocolate can't fix." He smiles.

You can't help but smile because as much as you aren't interested in him, he really is a nice guy and the chocolate was thoughtful, "Thanks Finn, that's really sweet." You say and immediately regret the words because even though he's beaming like he's won something, Lexa has swept from the common room her lips twisted into something a lot like disappointment. You try to call out for her to stay, that she's left her book bag beside your feet, but she is gone.

You stay, trapped by Finn for a brief conversation and by the time you manage to escape you know she could be anywhere in the castle and it's nearly past curfew but you go after her anyway. You have to.

You walk quickly through the halls, checking empty classrooms, careful to avoid prefects or Fitch. You peek into the courtyards and every hidden place you can think she might have gotten off to, you are about to call it a night and admit defeat when you take a quick turn to avoid a Hufflepuff prefect.

You dodge into a hidden staircase and spin around to be confronted with a sight that twists your stomach.

You've finally found Lexa, and she's pressing a fifth year from Ravenclaw up against the stone wall. They're joined at the lips and one of Lexa's hands is out of sight beneath the Ravenclaw's robes. They don't spring apart when they realize you're there, rather the Ravenclaw giggles a bit, a blush rising on her cheeks with a soft 'oh', clearly embarrassed at being caught like this. Lexa merely stares at you, this scary blank expression on her face. She isn't surprised or ashamed she betrays no emotion and simply looks at you almost bored as if to say 'see what you've made me do?'

You don't say anything. Just back out of the secret stairway and let the tapestry fall back into place between you and her. You turn on your heel and stride quickly from the scene. It isn't until you've made it two floors up that you realize you're not on the proper side of the castle to be headed back to the Gryffindor tower, and you're crying.

You hear footsteps approach and you duck into a niche in the wall but you are not quick enough and an illuminated wand tip is shining light onto the tears tracking down your cheeks and Professor Snape is looking at you with a mix of disappointment and pity written across his face.

"It's past hours for students to be out of bed." He says, formal as always.

"I know." You reply thickly.

"And yet you are." He questions leadingly.

Before you can stop yourself, you feel the damn break within you and what was at first small tears are full sobs followed by ragged gasps of breath, "I was just trying to find her- to apologize because she was so hurt- but I couldn't find her- but then I did- and she was with her." You manage to get out between your tears and Snape is looking at you like you've grown a second head and you wonder if he's ever had a student cry to him rather than cry because of him.

He recovers quickly enough and gestures toward the stairs just down the corridor, "Have a seat Ms. Griffin before you hyperventilate and pass out."

You drop heavily into the stone, wiping your nose on your sleeve and he sits gingerly beside you leaving a wide gap but conjuring a handkerchief from thin air and handing it to you.

"Thanks." You mop up your tears and try to get a handle on your breathing.

He doesn't push you to talk which you are quite grateful for. You're not sure if it's because he knows how to handle and emotional teenage girl or because he's afraid of setting you off again if he asks the wrong thing.

When your tears subside and you aren't hiccuping for breath, you chance a sidelong glance at him. He is scowling at a painting on the floor below, but he must feel your eyes on him because his gaze flicks to you moments later, "Ready to explain yourself?" He prods.

You take a deep breath and try again, "There's this person I like and I think they like me too but then tonight in the common room they got the wrong idea and walked out. I wanted to apologize and explain so I tried to find he-they but when I did, they were snogging someone else, and I just feel so silly for thinking sh-they could like me." You rush out.

You catch yourself a few times just before using an incriminating pronoun because red eyed on the steps in the middle of the night was not how you planned on coming out to someone for the very first time. But you know he must connect the dots from your first rushed explanation to this one because he doesn't say anything for a moment but understanding colors his hard features.

"I'm sorry." You finally say breaking the silence, "I shouldn't have been out of bed and I shouldn't have bothered you with such a silly problem."

You hand him back the handkerchief and stand. You think he will let you leave without another word and you get three steps before he says in a voice so soft you almost miss the words, "Unrequited love, Ms. Griffin can be one of the most painful things in our world. But it will get better. Give it time, you're young you will get over her eventually."

"Thank you."

You take a couple more steps before his voice catches you again. This time loud and commanding like you're used to hearing it, "I'll be taking ten points from Gryffindor for your late night wanderings."

You nod and hide a smile because at least he hasn't given you detention. You hurry back to the common room and when you return to gather your things before going to bed you see that Lexa's bag has disappeared from where it was on the floor beside your chair.

The next day in practice you both astutely pretend that nothing has happened and that everything is normal. And somehow after a few weeks you don't have to pretend anymore. You don't glare at the Ravenclaw when you pass in the hallways, she's far too kind, always shooting you a small smile- bedsides, she hasn't done anything to deserve your wrath.

It takes a little time but eventually you manage to look at Lexa again without seeing that blank expression she wore that night.

You take simple pleasure in the kind of friends you are able to become with her again. The kind of friends that hold hands when walking through hogsmeade and borrow quills without asking. The kind of friends that rub each others shoulders or massage each other's scalps if they notice the other is getting too stressed with homework. The kind of friends you were before that night.

You don't quite get over her, she will always be the small girl with the soft-rough hands but maybe this can be enough.

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 **A/N- So that happened. Thanks for reading/ reviewing. Keep that up!**


	5. Chapter 5

She grew up in a muggle orphanage. It's something that came out without her permission in her third year when some Slytherins announced it to the entire school before a big quidditch match to try and throw her off her game. It didn't work.

But her upbringing has rubbed off on her more than she'll ever admit. She does these little things that make your heart practically flip. Like sometimes when you're working late in the common room -you with books spread in front of you across every available surface and her curled up in a squashy armchair with books stacked precariously on the edge- she will get unreasonably and inexplicably mad at her quill.

She will pull a face at it, and toss it angrily into her bag, forcing the cork back into her ink pot which has been balanced carefully on her knee and throw that into her bag too. She will rummage around for a moment before producing a ballpoint pen and continuing to scrawl her essay out with that instead.

Tonight though, you aren't marveling at her writing habits. Rather you're watching critically from beside a pillar in the courtyard. It is snowing lightly and you're regretting not wearing a shawl or something, you had been petty when getting dressed for the Yule ball and you had wanted to show off your shoulders in your strapless gown.

Now you're cursing your stupidity because you're shivering in the snow.

But she's not shivering and her gown is strapless as well, it's a beautiful red that goes so well with her tan skin and her hair is in this braided bun updo that you know Raven must have done for her (she always braids everyone's hair before quidditch matches). She is sitting on a step at the edge of the courtyard so you can just see her profile as she brings a cigarette up to her lips and inhales. It's a move so graceful it doesn't match the sour smell of smoke you can catch from your position. But you smile nonetheless because it's your fifth year which means it's her sixth year which means she was barely of age when the tournament began and she had put her name in the goblet of fire.

You had been there at the front of the crowd watching skeptically as the rest of the Gryffindors cheered Lexa on when she crossed the age line and dropped her name in the goblet.

The champion selection was one of the most stressful evenings of your life, you had sat there in the great hall beside her, fingers crossed out of sight beneath the table praying that she wouldn't be chosen.

She wasn't. She is here with you safely ruining her lungs in the courtyard. This is the first time you've ever caught her smoking and it takes a minute for you to pull this term from the recesses of your mind- wizards don't smoke save for the occasional older man with his pipe.

She taps off some ash and you square your shoulders to walk over to her. You drop down beside her, smoothing out your skirt- the dark blue rests just beside the crimson of her gown.

"You're missing the party." You say.

"So are you." She counters with her damn thin smile. The teasing one that encompasses every wanting look and lingering touch you've been trading like playing cards the past five years.

"I'd rather be out here." You hedge thinking this will be it. Tonight you will lay everything on the table, you will cut through the game you've been playing and finally come clean.

She sizes you up, apparently sensing the turn this conversation is taking, "So would I."

You breath a slight sigh of relief, you had been ready for her to deflect any seriousness and diffuse the conversation like she is so good at.

You don't say anything further yet, afraid of scaring her off and erasing any progress you've made. She stubs out her cigarette on the stone step beside her.

She knots her fingers together, a nervous habit you've picked up on from countless quidditch matches, and final exam seasons. She stands and holds out her hand to pull you up. You allow it and when you're both righted, she doesn't drop your hand but uses it to lead you out of the courtyard. You walk hand in hand through the lightly falling snow until she has somehow led you to where the carriages have been parked and she leans against one.

You lean watching her while she watches her fingers linked with yours, you can hear the music drifting out of the great hall somewhere behind you but it is muted and soft.

"You agreed to go to the ball with Finn." She says so quietly you almost miss it.

"You went with Fred." You reply quickly.

She shoots you a look that says 'that's not the point' and you know it isn't, because Lee Jordan had been asking her for weeks and because you'd accidentally caught her one time fourth year in a hidden stairway with a girl from Ravenclaw so her going with one of the Weasleys really is not the point.

You wish it was.

"The person I really wanted to go with didn't ask me." You finally allow in a shy voice.

"Who did you want to go with?"

You drop your eyes to your hand still held in hers. You've learned by now exactly what her hands feel like, her soft-rough palms from grasping her broom, her hand is the perfect size to slid yours into.

You give her hand the slightest squeeze and it's all the answer she needs. Before you can process what's happening, she's moved. She presses her free hand to your hip, spinning you so your back is flush against the carriage, she steps into your space, your breath mingling while her hand moves up from your hip to cup your cheek. She looks into your eyes for a moment of hesitation and all it takes is a reassuring smile before her lips are on yours.

And suddenly every loaded glance, every prolonged silence, every late night conversation and private smile explodes in this moment of yes and soft and perfect.

The snow is still falling and you can see the flakes in her eyelashes when she pulls back far enough to shoot a quick glance around the courtyard full of carriages and use your still joined hands to urge you to climb into the one you had just been pressed up against.

You scramble in as quickly and ungracefully as you can manage and she follows. In an instant the door is shut and she is pursuing you again. You hardly have time to contemplate how five years of buildup has culminated in making out in the back of a carriage at the Yule ball, because her hands are on your waist and in your hair and her tongue is gentle against your lips and you are parting to allow her access.

She pulls away from the kiss only to encourages you to lay down on the bench and she maneuvers herself over you, painfully graceful in her gown and somehow her hair isn't at all messed up and her lipstick is hardly smudged and you're sure you must look like a mess but she is kissing down your neck and you can only process relief that you chose to forego a shawl that evening because her mouth on your bare collarbone is sinful.

You can't have been shut up in that carriage for more than ten minutes- Lexa's hands have hardly managed to stay in the same place for more than a few seconds at a time, she seems so eager now that she's been given permission to explore the territory just beyond the range of platonic that she's been confined to for the last five years- when the door is blasted open.

She shoots upright and her head snaps around to the intrusion behind her. You can't see who is in the doorway but you hear them clear as day when he says, "Out! Ten points from gryffindor Ms. Woods."

She guiltily untangles herself from you, a blush rising on her tan cheeks and you follow her out of the carriage to be confronted with none other than professor Snape. When his eyes land on you, they widen in surprise. He recovers quickly though, shaking his head. You swear you see a slight grin on his lips when he says , "That's ten points from Gryffindor for you as well Ms. Griffin."

"Yes sir." You murmur.

"Now I suggest you rejoin the party before I decide to add detention too."

Lexa's hand creeps into yours again and she pulls you away from the scene. She doesn't stop at the great hall, rather she leads you all the way up to the Gryffindor dormitory.

You share small laughs and smiles, and the entire way up her hand stays firmly in yours.

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 **A/N- Thanks for reading/ reviewing. Lemme know what you thought!**


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